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Mainnet Merge Announcement

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#241

Post by lesuorac »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #174
redox99 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't prove anything. You can solo mine with a single GPU and choose to censor whoever you want. Any miner no matter how small can censor their own blocks.

What you say is true in the same way like saying that taking a cup of water out of the ocean lowers the ocean level a little. It is true, but it is not significant. The moment the mining is moved to mostly non-solo miners ( and even now non-solo miners seem to vastly outnumber in sheer mining power established solo miners ). Basically, concentration of power means that eth will quickly become everything the banks are…

Isn't eth's power already concentrated more than banks are?

Like 4 pools control 51% of the hashrate so they already can easily bully solo-miners.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#242

Post by jbaczuk »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #237
jbaczuk wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your answer to clean energy to just use less energy, that seems inane. Also the increase in energy costs because of the war in Ukraine is directly related to dependence on foreign fuel which is not clean. So the problem isn't energy consumption, the problem is using fossil fuels.

Lower consumption works even better than cleaner energy. Even wind/solar/nuclear has a carbon cost to it. PoS consumes less energy than PoW. That's a win.

> Even wind/solar/nuclear has a carbon cost to it.

Yeah, so does life.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#243

Post by tboyd47 »

remram wrote: post #184
tboyd47 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes the other 49% won't accept the bad guys' blocks in their chain. Those blocks are valid, so the 49% will accept them and build off of them. At any point there is still a 49% chance the next block will be mined by a good guy. If the bad guys decide not to accept the good guys' blocks, then they are hard forking Bitcoin and will end up just like Bitcoin Cash: irrelevant. This is the exact problem PoW was de…

If the 49% mine a block, the 51% can ignore it and will eventually surpass the 49%'s chain's length long term, no matter how lucky they are short-term.

The 51% can ignore the 49%'s blocks, but there is no way the 51% can force the 49% to ignore THEIR blocks.

The only way 51% of miners can fork the blockchain and actually overtake the other 49% with more restrictive rules is if they have a hidden nuclear reactor dedicated to mining Bitcoin that produces hashpower equal or more than 49% of the network and they flip it on at the moment they fork.

Again, it doesn't matter how many people are convinced a 51% attack is possible on Bitcoin. It's never even been tried once. So the burden of proof is on you all. I'm just trying to help explain why this concept has never been proven.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#244

Post by stiltzkin »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #117
potatototoo99 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is correct. It was already much more centralized than for instance bitcoin, due to the difficulty in having a validator node, but now it is just managed by the big holders and that's that. Furthermore, they will censor transactions according to US laws at least, and if you try to validate and not censor, you will get your staked coins taken from you by the protocol (as opposed to PoW, where you just fail to g…

Already happening - the biggest miner refused to include Tornado Cash transactions in the mining pool. Stick a fork in it. Ethereum is done. With that degree of centralization, might as well just run a database and call it a day.

Waiting you run a big central database as Ethereum with the same marketcap.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#245

Post by exo762 »

rglullis wrote: post #213
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. How long until BTC follows suit?

Judging by the BTC maxis on this thread and all the FUD they are spreading, never. If I have to make a bet, though, I think that what will happen is that financial institutions will start pushing for the idea of wrapping BTC on the Ethereum blockchain, and once it reaches a certain threshold (let's say 80%) they will campaign to drop the bitcoin PoW altogether. But this is a conversation that bitcoiners are not ready…

There is an amazing proposal [0] on building trustless bridge for BTC on Ethereum. Leona Hioki is GOAT.

[0] https://ethresear.ch/t/trustless-bitcoin-bridge-creation-wit...

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#246

Post by exo762 »

josu wrote: post #228
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. How long until BTC follows suit?

Never. PoW is a fundamental part of what makes bitcoin valuable.

May I ask you to elaborate? This sounds intriguing.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#247

Post by stiltzkin »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #191
bluelightning2k wrote: post #143

I can be anti-crypto and still appreciate this. First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. (Although having the impact to begin with is another story.) Secondly from a sheer technical coordination perspective there's a feeling of pulling off a complex dance. Makes it hard for any of us to claim our workloads aren't testable!

> First - clearly reducing the environmental impact of anything by this much is pro-humanity. How long until BTC follows suit?

Never, maxis know how much BTC will be worth when the last BTC is mined.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#248

Post by rcarmo »

Thank goodness. I have been waiting for this to happen so I can consider building a couple of GPU powered machines at non-outrageous prices, and it seems that savvy miners have already begun selling part of their gear early.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#249

Post by stiltzkin »

swamp40 wrote: post #113

My suspicion is that Ethereum got so popular because there were so many ways to make money from it. Basically a cash cow for developers and miners. Does anyone know where the money making opportunities will shift to with POS? Block builders? Validators? I suspect the amount of money to be made through MEV will dramatically decrease.

Don't have the numbers here but last I read you can retire staking with just 3 validators.

Re: Mainnet Merge Announcement

#250

Post by AlexandrB »

johntb86 wrote: post #195
sp332 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true they stopped buying new ones, but now they won't have any reason to keep old ones either. I'm expecting (hoping for) a glut of previous-generation GPUs as miners close up shop.

I've heard people warn that used gpus formerly used for mining might be a bad deal, since they've been run flat out 24/7. I don't know how true that is.

A friend sold me a 1070 Ti he used 24/7 for a year mining... something (zcash?). I ended up using that thing in my gaming PC for 3 more years before I upgraded recently.

I'm sure the lifespan of used GPUs is reduced, but it's hard to say by how much. There's probably a lot of variability due to chip yield and operating conditions (especially temperature and ESD safety). But if I could get one at half off, I'd probably take that chance.

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